Mushrooms and Kindness on a Beautiful Day

I had the day to myself and it was a beautiful day. I went off to the dump near the Laotian monastery to take our usual walk, but it was just me and Cleo. But serendipitously, I came across two ladies who I guessed were Lao. We were traveling in opposite directions the first time we met in the bird sanctuary. Then as I climbed up the hill leading out of the bird sanctuary and back to the main path I caught up with them as they leisurely walked back to the monastery. They were both holding plastic bags, and although I didn’t notice it the first time I saw them, one of them was holding a large knife.  They greeted me warmly, just as they had when I passed them in the bird sanctuary. And so I asked if they were, perhaps, out collecting mushrooms. And they were. The women showed me two bags full of mushrooms and told me they collect them every year. They assured me that they were safe and delicious. They were beautiful and looked like, and maybe were, oyster mushrooms.

Mushroom foraging has become a popular hobby in the US where mushroom clubs are mushrooming like crazy appealing to foodies and natural food lovers alike. According to the San Francisco Tribune, South East Asians are lovers of  mushroom foragers in the United States and unfortunately they also account for about half of the mushroom poisonings reported each year. It seems that a common and safe SE Asian mushroom (paddy-straw) is almost identical to the ‘Death Cap’ mushroom, which I would suppose is appropriately named. Since the death cap mushroom does not exist in SE Asia, foragers are often fooled into thinking the deadly mushroom is safe. The mushrooms the women were collecting were NOT death caps, and although I was not about to eat them, I am almost certain they were safe.

After a bit of conversation with the women, they realized I was the teacher who had visited Wat Bhuddabhavana with my students. They invited me to the Wat and although I demurred, they insisted I come and have some water. Cleo and I walked down the hill, spoke briefly to a monk, got some water and went back to our walk.

I  stopped to sit in the sun while Cleo lounged contentedly nearby.  I read a bit, and took some pictures of the turtles sunning.

A favorite place for turtles and teachers

The pond where Cleo and I sat to get some sun

As we walked back to the car, I looked high and low for mushrooms and all I could find was this tree stump with some beginnings of fungi growing.

Can you see the small mushrooms growing?

Check out My New Blog

Please check out my new blog. I decided I needed a blog that I was not going to be assigning to students as homework. Perhaps it was the Goat Days of Summer post that made me realize my blog was no longer about my Vietnam/Cambodian experience.  I don’t mind if my students read my other blog, but I will not be assigning it as homework. If I want to write about goats, or any other animal for that matter, I will now do it on my other blog!

The GOAT Days of Summer

The dog days of summer turn into the goat days of summer on the John Sloane farm!

I have found myself wracking my brain trying to think of something about which to blog.  But there is little happening on the teacher’s journey front.

I am soon to write my blog post about cell phone use, but I am still in the research phase; looking for different points of view about the use or banishment of cell phones in the classroom.

But I did have a journey to Cape Cod yesterday, where I caught up with old teacher friends. Brenda Sloane, retired LHS teacher, invited a group of us to her farm in Falmouth. There we did the things teachers do; we talked, we walked, we swam, and we ate.

Old friends from Lowell High School. Only two of us still work there.

What I Learned in Cambodia

While in Phnom Penh, I sometimes felt a bit defensive about my job as a teacher. Teaching is a common job; lots of people do it. And then a profound shift occurred somewhere between a dispassionate argument about how the Cambodian work camps were numbered, and a more heated exchange about the length of the lunch ‘hour’.  I came to see teaching as an art and a way of profound human interaction. What follows is my attempt at a photo essay about why I love teaching.

1) Teachers get to think about, talk about, and teach about big ideas with students who challenge us.

She kept me on my toes!

2) Teachers get to travel for free.

In Alabama on a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 2006

3) We get to have our pictures taken with possible future presidents.

If Barack Obama hadn't already done it, I'm pretty sure Artur Davis, Congressman from Alabama, would be the first Black President

4) We make real human connections with people who we might not have had the chance to meet if they or their children weren’t in our classrooms.

Adaliz and her Mom, spring open house 2009

5) We get to go to the prom every year!

...and our students love to have their pictures taken with us...

6) We don’t have to sit at our desks all day.

Nothing like a walk in the woods with a monk to relieve our cynicism

7) We are able to be there while our kids grow up.

Mia and Emma a few years back; school vacation week

8 ) Our students often become our teachers.

He taught me a thing or two!

9) And sometimes they become our lifelong friends.

Jeff and Vannak: skydiving 2008

10) We have generous amounts of vacation time where we get to refuel and rejuvenate so we can come back into the classroom and express our humanity.

...The End...

Low Point/Cambodia

Now that I have been home a few weeks, I can confess the low point of the trip. It has taken me this long to be able to write about it; I still would rather not talk about it. If you follow me or the blog, you might think the low point would have been a night of vomiting, but  illness is not as bad as being foolish and gullible. The low point involves this sleeping baby.

Suspicious baby

The sleeping baby in the photo above belongs to a shopkeeper in the Russian market in Phnom Penh. Last year, I had gone to the Russian market with Dany, Thida, and Sophea Mot (the famous MOT sisters) and Kim Cheng (aka, KC). The girls took me to their favorite shopkeeper and jewelry seller so I could buy some necklaces for my children. The shopkeeper was very nice, the girls had a good time in the little stall, and I purchased two necklaces with the first letters of my childrens’ names in Khmer. I had kept the woman’s card and planned to return there this year so I could purchase some more silver jewelry. I went to the market on a Sunday, but alas, I had left the card in my hotel room. Still, I thought I could find the shop if I searched the market for a corner stall (I remembered the corner) and the initial necklaces which most shops don’t seem to have. I was almost finished shopping when I came upon the necklaces in a corner shop.

I went up the shopkeeper and said I was looking for the necklaces. I told her I had bought some last year when I was shopping with the Mot sisters and KC. Of course she remembered me! (Who wouldn’t?) I asked her if she remembered KC and she said, “Oh yes, wasn’t she very thin?” Now, I love KC, and she is small, but well,  she is not very thin! But honestly, if you are guessing about a Cambodian girl and you guess very thin, that will usually work.  At this point, I was becoming very suspicious. I asked her again about the sisters, and she assured me she knew the sisters and she knew KC. I said, “Hmmm, I remember your being bigger.” And then she showed me the baby. Last year, she was pregnant with that little duplicitous dumpling of a child. Of course, I said to myself, a baby would explain the bigger woman I remember. After all, it was about a thousand degrees in the market, I had been wandering through the maze of stalls for way too long and I just wanted to buy a bracelet or two,.

I knew that this was very fishy, but I didn’t want to know. I picked out a couple of bracelets; she gave me the price and they were the same price I paid last year for the bracelets at another stall. I bought two. Then I asked her if I could take a picture of her and a picture of the baby to show the Mot sisters and KC.

The shopkeeper who "remembered" me from last year!

I left with a strange feeling about the whole exchange. I went back to my hotel and searched for the card. Of course, the card from last year did not match the shop from this year. This lady is a perfect stranger to me, the Mot sisters, and KC. I was a sucker.  I certainly overpaid both last year and this year. Not only did this innocent looking woman make me feel bad about my purchase this year, she made me feel bad about my purchase of two silver bracelets in Siem Reap over a year ago.

I Am a Pothead!

I loved the orchid garden outside of the senate library in Phnom Penh. Phala took this picture of me sitting quietly in the garden. The picture is lovely, but there is something funny about it, don’t you think?

In the orchid garden...with pots

A Day in the Life: Phnom Penh Style

Now that I am back home and fully recovered from jet lag, I can post with photos and a more complete picture of the Genocide Education Project. First, I will offer some commentary about the controversy concerning the use of the word genocide to describe what happened in Cambodia. Most of the professors who attended the program do not think that the murder of close to 2 million Cambodians from 1975 to 1979 was genocide according to the current and legal definition of the word. They call what happened a mass atrocity or mass political killings. Professor Frank Chalk devoted his lecture to the topic; although his thesis was that it shouldn’t matter whether it is a genocide, it was still a crime against humanity, and worthy of attention and justice.

Professor Frank Chalk of Concordia University in Montreal

The genocide education project (GEP) was developed by the DC-CAM to train all secondary school history teachers how to teach about the Khmer Rouge Period. The initial training was for members of the Ministry of Education and the Pedagogical Training Unit. Starting in September, these trainers will then go out to all of the provinces in Cambodia to train 1800 teachers in method and content.  The DC-CAM invited a team of international scholars to the initial training, and also 4 facilitators (I was a facilitator).

Every morning, I would wake up, have breakfast in the hotel, and get in the tuk-tuk which took us to the DC-CAM.

Phala and I on our way to work.

There is always plenty to look at as you ride in the tuk-tuk

We would arrive at the Senate Library, where the training was held, by 8 in the morning.

The Senate Library

The training sessions were rather formal affairs. All of the Cambodian trainees sat in the first rows, while the foreigners and the interpreters sat behind them. The lecturers and guest speakers sat at the front table.

Some of the trainees

The mornings always had a history session in which Khamboly Dy, who wrote the textbook for the course, and Professor David Chandler went over 2 chapters of the book, A History of Democratic Kampuchea. Boly is a doctoral student at Rutgers in Newark, New Jersey.

Professor Chandler and Boly Dy (sorry - a terrible picture!)

After the morning session, we would have a very nice luncheon outside the Senate Library. The lunches were 1 and a half hours long! After the first day or so, I discovered a lovely orchid garden outside the library where I would spend a good part of my lunch. The orchid garden was very beautiful and soothing. I noticed I often felt restless during the training sessions, and so the garden was a good antidote to my restlessness.

I needed time to clear my head in the garden

In the afternoon, we would conduct our small group sessions. In these sessions, teachers would deliver lesson plans based on the guidebook and the textbook.  I also modeled lessons for my small group. After the small group sessions, we would go back to the big group and listen to another guest lecturer.

Phala with one of the members of my small group and a member of the Minstry of Education. She will also attend a Facing History seminar in London next month. You can tell she is important because she has two cell phones!

The end of the day would come at 5:00. All of the visitors would go back to the hotel and out for dinner. I ate at the same restaurant about four times. It was so lovely that I didn’t mind at all.

This picture was taken from my table at the restaurant.

This was a typical day working in Phnom Penh. Although I did get tired from working and frustrated by the pace of the training, I never got tired of sitting in the garden during lunch or watching the action in the streets of the city.

The END!

The Moto, Udong, The Dirt

The boy who fanned me

Day 6 – The day before the last day of training…

Your assignment today is to write a short essay about your weekend.

The view from the back of the moto

David Chandler, who by the way is not one to mince words, remarked that when he goes to Cambodia, his wife makes him promise two things: First,he has to promise that he won’t bring home lots of junk and second, that he won’t ride on a moto.  This trip he said he was able to keep one of his promises, but he was still bringing home lots of junk. Not me. I am bringing home plenty of junk and I spent most of my weekend riding on a moto. A moto is a motorcycle, but not a hog. There are three methods of for hire transportation in Cambodia; tuk-tuks, taxis, and motos. To hire a moto, you find a guy wearing a baseball cap riding or waiting around on his moto. He will take you anywhere on his moto; you just need to hop on the back and off you go. There is a new helmet law in Cambodia, so the driver must wear a helmet, not so the rider. Often you will see a family on the moto, the dad driving and wearing a helmet and the baby or child sitting in the front with no protection whatsoever.

On Saturday, I had nothing to do. My #1 buddy Phala was off with her family. I had wanted to take a trip out to the countryside, but wasn’t sure if I was brave enough to do it on my own. Luckily for me, I found out that Chris and his girlfriend were planning a trip to Udong, only 38 kilometers from Phnom Penh. Udong is a small mountain with a few stupas (pagodas) at the top. Chris has his own moto that he rents while in Cambodia, so the only thing to do was to get a moto and driver to take me out to Udong. That was easily arranged for $13.

It was my anniversary. For the first 5 minutes or so of my ride all I could think of was how angry Jeff was going to be if I got killed in a moto accident on my anniversary. But soon the thrill of the road and the dirt blowing in my face took over my thoughts. We drove through towns and small villages while the trucks, cars, and buses whizzed by. One village we drove through was mostly Cham Muslim and the women walked around with headscarves and a mosque dominated the center of the town. We passed a couple of Muslim schools and innumerable temples and monasteries.

At one point, my driver, who spoke nary a word of English and had never been to Udong before, took a detour down a lovely dirt road through a village surrounded by rice and sugar cane fields.

Udong itself was not that spectacular if you had already seen Angkor (ok, I’m bragging). At Angkor there are a host of children selling their wares and they are quite aggressive. Here there were also the temple sellers and beggars, but they were much sweeter and less aggressive. Each of us had our personal fanner. We didn’t have a choice. A boy followed me the whole way up the 490 steps of the Stupa fanning me and quite honestly, I appreciated it. It was so hot.

At the top of the Stupa, we found some shade under a straw roof and sat on a slatted sleeping area. The people who worked at the temples were poor.  I was hungry and so I took out the biscuits that I had brought with me for the day and that I had purchased in Hong Kong.  I offered the biscuits to the people around me and they took them very graciously and ate them hungrily. I offered another biscuit to the old woman (probably younger than me) sitting next to me in the shade and selling coke. She took it. In a couple of minutes, I saw her take the biscuit and put it in her small handbag. She was so thin. I assumed she was saving it for later or for one of her children.

On the way down from the Stupa, a couple of high school boys started walking with me; these were not temple beggars or dwellers, but instead were visitors to the temple themselves.

I paid the fanner. Did he get the money to keep? Probably not. Did he go to school? Probably not. Although he said he did. I made at least one serious mistake in dealing with this issue. I bought the boy a coke to drink and then I watched him put it in his pocket. He was not going to drink it, but was going to give it back to the seller or whoever was looking or not looking out for him.  If I had wanted him to drink the coke, I should have drunk some first and given him the rest. Or maybe I should  not give him a coke at all. Or not let him fan me.

We rode home. I needed to make a pit stop and we found a restaurant where I used the squat toilet in the back. The people were laughing hysterically as I tried to explain what I needed using physical gestures. (You would think I might consider learning the Khmer word for toilet, right?)

We made it home in one piece and I vowed that that would be the last time that I risked a moto ride. But then Sunday came and a moto ride seemed like a perfectly good way to get around the city to do some shopping. And despite the torrential downpour, my driver purchasing a rain poncho for me to wear, and my getting soaked from head to toe anyway, it was.